[ Food, like climate, like income, like “the environment”
raises all the important issues, and it’s as good a tool for
grappling with those issues as anything else. If we can’t
sustainably and reliably provide ourselves with good food, we’re
looking at a future of increasing illness and planetary degradation.]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE

WHAT IS FOOD?  
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Mark Bittman
August 4, 2022
Bittman Project
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_ Food, like climate, like income, like “the environment” raises
all the important issues, and it’s as good a tool for grappling with
those issues as anything else. If we can’t sustainably and reliably
provide ourselves with good food, we’re looking at a future of
increasing illness and planetary degradation. _

By upgrading the food system, we upgrade society, Paula Jackson Art

 

An objective newcomer could observe that we’ve decided that
agriculture, food processing, and marketing may be run almost entirely
with the goal of maximizing profits, with inadequate (and
often-ignored) regulation, and almost no guiding principles around
their impact on humans, other species, or the earth. After all we, as
a nation, could be saying that “nutritious, affordable, and green
food is right of all,” and we do not.

By failing to do so, we fail to nourish ourselves. In a way, fixing
all of this is as easy as stating a clear intent of what food is for
and acting accordingly.

Food is to nourish people. We can elaborate on that, but that’s the
fundamental principle. We don’t act as if we believe that.

 Of course, “acting accordingly” is not “easy.” It is,
however, possible, in ways that it hadn’t been until now. Until
recently, hunger, malnutrition, and famine were inevitable; now they
are not. Until recently, the true costs of increasing yield at the
expense of resource use and health were hidden or undiscovered; now
they are obvious. Until recently we did not accurately know which
aspects of food promoted health and which promoted disease; now, we
actually do. Until recently, many people believed (and still do) that
industrial agriculture would “feed the world.” Now we know it
won’t, and that it’s playing a role in destroying it.

Until now, many of our food-related problems could be chalked up to
ignorance; that’s no longer an excuse. The only excuse is that the
reigning version of our political economy allows, even encourages,
some portion of humanity to thrive at the expense of others. Quote all
the Churchill (“Capitalism is the unequal sharing of
blessings...Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”) and
Thatcher (“There is no alternative.”) you want: Encouraging
inequity is a deplorable notion.

You might be saying, “I thought we were talking about food.” We
are: Food, like climate, like income, like “the environment”
raises all the important issues, and it’s as good a tool for
grappling with those issues as anything else. If we can’t
sustainably and reliably provide ourselves with good food, we’re
looking at a future of increasing illness and planetary degradation.
The challenges are great but the costs of not meeting them are
inconceivable. Step by step, we must upgrade the food system; in doing
so we upgrade society.

 

This might begin in any number of ways. Since ideas are cheap, it’s
best to first consider those that combine meaningful impact with their
likelihood of actually happening. I could say “Free, high-quality
food for all,” and get laughed off this page. I could scale back:
“Let’s end monoculture,” but we’re not in any position to do
that or even have that conversation. Even, “Mandate that 20 percent
of food be organic,” in an era of Michelob Organic Hard Seltzer and
other abominations, is not likely to be super meaningful.

Let me, then, put forward several achievable ideas — all
justifiable, and achievable in the very near future (I mean, assuming
a reasonable government, not a safe assumption) — that will at least
allow us to see and set down on the road to building a food system
that is green and just, and all that those two words imply.

Restrict the sale of junk food to children, an idea that was humming
along until Ronald Reagan was inaugurated. We could also tax junk food
(beginning with soda) and use the income to subsidize fruits and
vegetables. Okay, that’s three ideas right there, but they’re
related, and they’re all happening in countries both richer and
poorer than ours; there are, for example, 28 countries with some form
of soda tax; in the US there are eight cities.

Institute real and enforceable regulations governing the raising of
animals for food, and enhance transparency on “farms” (they’re
really factories) doing so. (Enforcing existing environmental laws
would help here as well, as these factories are egregious polluters.)
The extent to which animals’ lives are discounted is hidden from
most Americans, who would be horrified and ashamed if they saw what
happens in large-scale “barns.” Favoring decent treatment for
animals is hardly the same as “being vegan.”

Fix tipped wage and other racist and sexist wage laws. Five or more of
the worst-paying jobs in the United States are in the food system.
Much of this problem is due to New Deal-era laws that were designed to
keep women, immigrants, Blacks, and people of color in general in
their places. The Federal tipped wage law, for example, allows for a
minimum wage of $2.13 per hour for employees who earn more than $30
per month in tips. (Employers are supposed to make up the difference
between actual earnings and the “real” minimum wage, but that
practice is routinely ignored.) The $15 minimum wage for all would go
a long way here, though of course not far enough.

Clean up agriculture’s impact on the environment. As long as the
biggest farmers take billions of dollars in aid from the government
each year, we—the tax paying public—can justifiably expect them to
farm in ways that build soil, protect water and air, and mitigate
climate change.

For more than 150 years, the Department of Agriculture — founded to
harness the political and economic power that comes with being an
agricultural behemoth —has determined that industrialization and
commodification, the business of food, would come first. The actual
well- being of farmers was a distant and incidental second, and
eaters—well, we take what the market gives us. Farming to maximize
healthy food for humans was never a goal, any more than minimizing
damage to the land and other creatures.

Yet it isn’t at all ridiculous for the USDA to use the answer to the
question, “What is food for?” as a guiding principle. And that
answer is simple: Food is to nourish people, fairly and equitably,
while respecting the people who provide it and the land and other
resources from which it comes. Yet it isn’t at all ridiculous for
the USDA to use the answer to the question, “What is food for?” as
a guiding principle. And that answer is simple: Food is to nourish
people, fairly and equitably, while respecting the people who provide
it and the land and other resources from which it comes.

 

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